Tempo Fashion. Off the cuff.

Rupaul Is All Decked Out For A New Ad Campaign

Even as a kindergartner, RuPaul whiled away the hours painting his face and staging mock makeup commercials in front of his mirror.

So who better to be the first spokesmodel for the hip Toronto-based MAC Cosmetics than this singing, 6-foot-7-inch drag queen?

"I am the MAC girl, hel-lo," says RuPaul. "They realized no one on the planet wears as much makeup as I do."

This could be true.

"He's not just another pretty face," says a MAC spokeswoman. "He and MAC were a very good fit, rather than us going for a white supermodel who looks like every other white supermodel, but for (someone who stands for) beauty being beauty."

As the MAC "girl," the Atlantan will tour the country promoting MAC fundraising efforts, such as the "Viva Glam" program, in which proceeds from the popular lipstick will be donated to AIDS research. MAC's first ad campaign debuts in May.

He's happy to wax rhapsodic about his favorite lipsticks: "Viva Glam" and "Diva" ("Because I'm a diva"). Or about his beauty routine: "Loving yourself and finding out what it is you have to bring to the party."

But despite his affection for artifice, the lashes, stilettos and mile-high wigs are strictly business.

"I think of it as fun," says RuPaul, who's currently filming the comedy "Red Ruben Blues" in which he plays-surprise-a man. "It's not a lifestyle to me. You won't find me at home alone in drag watching television."

Drag, RuPaul says, isn't just about a bunch of heavily made-up cross dressers lipsyncing to Barbra Streisand. And it's not about a sexual fetish.

"We're all in some form of drag," explains RuPaul, "whether you're on Wall Street and you put on a suit or you're a doctor in a hospital wearing scrubs."

More makeup madness

They've got a lot in common-RuPaul, that is, and makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin. They're both tall. Talkative. Southern-their moms grew up together in St. Martinsville, La.

And they both turned growing up gay, different and obsessed with makeup into lucrative careers.

"I felt very isolated; I was suicidal," says Aucoin, who recently was at Saks Fifth Avenue promoting his book, "The Art of Makeup." "I became fascinated with the connection between beauty and power."

And so, as a teen, Aucoin decided that painting faces was a much more social outlet for his creative impulses than painting canvases in a lonely garret.

"Being a makeup artist is kind of a very insignificant role in terms of affecting change," says Aucoin. "So I try to be open about who I am. If one kid in small-town America reads this and gets hope, then it's worth it."